‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ Has Solid Opening Weekend Gross
Becoming Led Zeppelin opened this past weekend exclusively in IMAX theaters and had an impressive showing at the box office.
According to Box Office Mojo, the long-in-the-works documentary made $2.6 million in its opening weekend. That was enough to come in at No. 7 in the domestic weekend box office tallies. Deadline notes that Becoming Led Zeppelin appeared on 369 IMAX screens and that its gross was the biggest domestic opening weekend ever for an IMAX-exclusive music release. The $2.6 million gross was exceptionally well considering film box offices tend to take a backseat during Super Bowl weekend.
The making of Becoming Led Zeppelin was quite the labor of love for writer-director Bernard MacMahon and writer Allison McGourty. The filmmakers spoke to The Guardian about the lengths they went to make this documentary.
Beginning with Jimmy Page, MacMahon and McGourty had individual meetings with the surviving members of Led Zeppelin. The meeting with Page took place at a London hotel in November 2017, and it lasted seven hours and included a tea break. Page showed up with multiple shopping bags. MacMahon said he thought the guitar god brought sandwiches; Page actually brought his old diaries that went all the way back to the 1960s.
Page had little secret tests for MacMahon and McGourty to see if he could trust them. One of those tests included asking them if they wanted to visit Pangbourne, the boathouse where Page once lived. They said yes, and McGourty told The Guardian, “Later, [Page] revealed it had been a test. ‘If you had said no to Pangbourne we wouldn’t have done the film.'”
Once MacMahon and McGourty had Page on board, the guitarist told them it was on them to get Jones and Plant to agree to the film. Jones initially said he wasn’t interested, but MacMahon sent him American Epic, his and McGourty’s docuseries about 1920s American roots music. The Guardian notes, “MacMahon asked Jones to ‘watch 15 minutes, and if you don’t want to talk to us after that, you won’t hear from us again and that will be the end of the film.’ Jones obliged, called MacMahon back, and then signed on after a four-hour conversation.
Plant, of course, would be the toughest nut to crack. Fortunately for MacMahon and McGourty, Plant was familiar with American Epic. After meeting Plant at a concert in Scotland, having two additional meetings, and another chat, he was on board.
Becoming Led Zeppelin is out now, and tickets for future screenings are available at IMAX.com.
